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France announces it will end visa restrictions with Morocco

France announces it will end visa restrictions with Morocco
Morocco’s Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita holds a press conference with France Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna as she starts an official visit to Rabat, Morocco, on Friday. (AP)
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Updated 16 December 2022
Reuters

France announces it will end visa restrictions with Morocco

France announces it will end visa restrictions with Morocco
  • "We've taken measures with our Moroccan partners to re-establish a consular relationship," Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said
  • It was not immediately clear whether France had got anything in return from Morocco
Updated 16 December 2022
Reuters

PARIS: France will end visa restrictions for Moroccan nationals, the foreign minister said on Friday, in a sign of warmer relations between the two countries after more than a year of tensions between Paris and Rabat.
“We’ve taken measures with our Moroccan partners to re-establish a consular relationship,” Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said on Friday after talks with her Moroccan counterpart Nasser Bourita in Rabat.
France, under pressure from public opinion to act to curb undocumented immigrants, announced last year it would cut the number of visas granted to nationals from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia because of the North African countries’ refusal to take back their citizens living illegally in France.
It was not immediately clear whether France had got anything in return from Morocco. Morocco’s Bourita said France had made a unilateral decision to end restrictions after what he said was also a unilateral decision to introduce the restrictions.
France has generally warmer relations with Morocco than with its eastern neighbor Algeria, also a former colony.
But ties deteriorated after media reports in the summer of 2021 said President Emmanuel Macron’s phone was on a list of potential targets for surveillance by Morocco using the Pegasus software. Morocco has denied the allegation and said it did not possess Pegasus.
The improvement in relations comes two days after France and Morocco played each other in the football World Cup semifinals in Qatar. France won the match, which gave greater visibility to the extensive links between the two countries and their dual nationals.

Topics: Morocco France visa restrictions

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Iran debates new penalties for veil violations

Iran debates new penalties for veil violations
Updated 16 sec ago
AFP

Iran debates new penalties for veil violations

Iran debates new penalties for veil violations
  • Women have been required to cover their hair after the Islamic revolution of 1979
  • But a growing number are defying the law and appearing bareheaded in the streets
Updated 16 sec ago
AFP
TEHRAN: An Iranian draft law that would set new penalties for women not wearing a headscarf in public has sparked heated debate within the Islamic republic’s leadership as more women flout the country’s strict dress code.
Since the aftermath of the Islamic revolution of 1979, women have been required to cover their hair and neck in public places, with offenders facing fines or prison terms of up to two months.
But a growing number are defying the law and appearing bareheaded in the streets.
The trend accelerated during the nationwide protests sparked by the September death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman arrested for allegedly violating the law.
The protests rocked Iran, provoking a crackdown by authorities that claimed the lives of hundreds of people, including dozens of security personnel, and saw thousands more arrested.
Iran’s conservatives, who dominate the country’s parliament and leadership, have passionately defended the dress code and believe relaxing rules would begin a process leading to profound shifts in “social norms.”
But with many Iranians demanding change, in May the judiciary and the government proposed a “Support for the Culture of Hijab and Chastity” bill, to “protect society” and “strengthen family life.”
The text proposes increased fines for “any person removing their veil in public places or on the Internet” but withdraws the threat of a prison sentence.
“This bill reduces the removal of the hijab from a felony to a misdemeanour, similar to a traffic violation but with heavier fines,” sociologist Abbas Abdi said.
After Amini’s death and the subsequent protests, society “no longer accepts that we imprison a woman because she does not wear the veil,” he said.
Since the protests, authorities have imposed a series of measures to enforce Iran’s strict dress code, including the closure of businesses whose staff do not conform with the rules and installing cameras in public places to track down offenders.
In recent days, at least three officials have been sacked or arrested for failing to prevent unveiled women from entering historic sites.
Under the proposed law, the text of which has been published in government-affiliated media, offenders will first receive a warning text message from the police.
A second breach will incur fines of between five million and 60 million rials (around $10 to $120), a large sum for many Iranians. The law would also provide for other penalities, including the confiscation of a woman’s vehicle for up to 10 days.
Defending the bill, judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei stressed the need to avoid polarizing society, saying he understood the “concerns of believers” supportive of the dress code.
As the bill awaits examination by lawmakers, it faces accusations of not being tough enough from ultra-conservatives, an influential bloc in the current parliament.
Relaxing punishments for violations will see “the expansion of a repugnant phenomenon” by “removing legal barriers” for women not wearing a veil, the ultra-conservative newspaper Kayhan said.
Those supporting the law “do not know that the enemy” seeks to “destroy the family as an institution and ultimately, to attack the foundations of the Islamic system” by removing headscarves, the newspaper said.
Social networks and foreign media, particularly television channels broadcasting in Persian, are calling for “social disobedience,” according to some ultra-conservatives.
Within Iran’s leadership “there is no consensus on the hijab,” as some favor repression, while others “believe that other means must be tried,” the sociologist Abdi said.
“The bill satisfies neither the supporters of compulsory hijab nor, of course, the supporters of the freedom to cover up or not.”
A similar situation developed in the 1990s with a law prohibiting the use of satellite dishes, he said.
“It was only implemented for a while before it was dropped.”

Kuwaitis turnout to cast vote in parliamentary elections

Kuwaitis turnout to cast vote in parliamentary elections
Updated 51 min 50 sec ago
Arab News

Kuwaitis turnout to cast vote in parliamentary elections

Kuwaitis turnout to cast vote in parliamentary elections
Updated 51 min 50 sec ago
Arab News

Polling stations opened across Kuwait on Tuesday where the country is electing its third parliament in three years. 

There was a “great turnout” by senior citzens who were casting their vote for the 2023 National Assembly, state news agency KUNA reported. 

Kuna went on to report that Kuwaitis were hoping the election would bring political stability with cooperation between the legislative and executive authorities. 

The general election was called by the Kuwaiti Emir, Sheikh Nawaf al-Ahmad al-Sabah last month.

Topics: Kuwait

Iran unveils its first hypersonic ballistic missile, state media reports

Iran unveils its first hypersonic ballistic missile, state media reports
Updated 39 min 50 sec ago
Reuters

Iran unveils its first hypersonic ballistic missile, state media reports

Iran unveils its first hypersonic ballistic missile, state media reports
  • Hypersonic missiles can fly at least five times faster than the speed of sound and on a complex trajectory
Updated 39 min 50 sec ago
Reuters

DUBAI: Iran presented what officials described as its first domestically-made hypersonic ballistic missile on Tuesday, the official IRNA news agency reported, an announcement likely to heighten Western concerns about Tehran’s missile capabilities.
Iranian state media published pictures of the missile named Fattah at a ceremony attended by President Ebrahim Rahisi and commanders of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards Corps.
“The precision-guided Fattah hypersonic missile has a range of 1,400 km and it is capable of penetrating all defense shields,” Amirali Hajjizadeh, the head of the Guards’ aerospace force, was quoted as saying by Iranian state media.
Hypersonic missiles can fly at least five times faster than the speed of sound and on a complex trajectory, which makes them difficult to intercept. Last year, the Islamic Republic said it had built a hypersonic ballistic missile which can maneuver in and out of the atmosphere. State TV said Iran’s Fattah missile can target “the enemy’s advanced anti-missile systems and is a big generational leap in the field of missiles.”
“It can bypass the most advanced anti-ballistic missile systems of the United States and the Zionist regime, including Israel’s Iron Dome,” Iran’s state TV said.
Fattah’s top speed reached mach 14 levels (15,000km/h), it added.
Despite US and European opposition, the Islamic Republic has said it will further develop its defensive missile program. However, Western military analysts say Iran sometimes exaggerates its missile capabilities.
Concerns about Iran’s ballistic missiles contributed to then-US President Donald Trump’s decision in 2018 to ditch Tehran’s 2015 nuclear pact with six major powers.
Trump reimposed US sanctions on Iran after exiting the nuclear pact, leading Tehran to resume previously banned nuclear work and reviving US, European and Israeli fears that Iran may seek an atomic bomb.

Iran has consistently denied any such ambition. Indirect talks between Tehran and US President Joe Biden’s administration to salvage the nuclear deal have stalled since last September. Israel, which the Islamic Republic refuses to recognize, opposes efforts by world powers to revive Tehran’s nuclear deal and has long threatened military action if diplomacy fails.

Topics: Iran

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New report offers sustainability advice for Arab governments

New report offers sustainability advice for Arab governments
Updated 06 June 2023
Arab News

New report offers sustainability advice for Arab governments

New report offers sustainability advice for Arab governments
  • ‘Sustainability and Government Action: Arab Government Situation’ was compiled by the Arab League’s Arab Administrative Development Organization and the UAE
  • It includes numerous recommendations, including the need to develop smart cities, encourage green financing, and capitalize on the resources of the private sector
Updated 06 June 2023
Arab News

DUBAI: A new report on sustainability, based on interviews with 1,800 Arab government officials, offers numerous recommendations to authorities in the region, including the need to develop smart cities, encourage green financing, fully capitalize on the resources of the private sector, and raise awareness of issues associated with sustainability.

Titled “Sustainability and Government Action: Arab Government Situation,” the report was compiled by the Arab League’s Arab Administrative Development Organization and the UAE, which holds the presidency of the 2023 UN Climate Change Conference, COP28. It was unveiled during the “Forum of Sustainability and Government Action” in Cairo, the Emirates News Agency reported on Monday.

Sultan Al-Jaber, the president-designate of COP28, told the forum that governments have a critical role to play in mitigating the effects of climate change by developing effective strategies than can help meet global climate goals in partnership with regional and international organizations.

“The report supports our focus during COP28 on enhancing the efforts to achieve a significant shift in climate action,” Al-Jaber said. The UAE will host COP28 in Dubai from Nov. 30 to Dec. 12.

Ohood Al-Roumi, the Emirati minister of state for government development and the future, delivered a keynote speech to the forum in Cairo during which she emphasized the importance of developing policies and laws that help promote a sustainable green transformation, and the public-private partnerships needed to help achieve climate neutrality.

She said the newly published report will help Arab governments in their efforts to improve sustainability and combat climate change, along with related social and economic issues. The minister also emphasized the potential avenues for boosting long-term economic growth highlighted by the report, such as the development of proactive climate policies and initiatives, and the need for resilience in adapting to green regulations.

Al-Roumi said the report reflects the Emirati government’s climate action efforts and its commitment to long-term solutions to environmental concerns, in keeping with the UAE’s Year of Sustainability and its preparations for hosting COP28.

Nasser Al-Hatlan Al-Qahtani, the director-general of the Arab Administrative Development Organization, said the publication of the report also provides an opportunity to assess how ready Arab governments are to address climate change challenges and capitalize on opportunities in the green economy.

Topics: climate change COP28

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Israeli soldiers to join Moroccan war games for first time

Israeli soldiers to join Moroccan war games for first time
Updated 06 June 2023
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Israeli soldiers to join Moroccan war games for first time

Israeli soldiers to join Moroccan war games for first time
  • Morocco and Israel have been working to boost cooperation in the military, security, trade and tourism fields since they normalized ties in December 2020
Updated 06 June 2023
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RABAT: Israeli soldiers will for the first time take part in military exercises in Morocco when the biggest war games event in Africa kicks off Tuesday, the Israeli army said.
“This is the first time that the IDF is taking an active part in the ‘African Lion’ international exercise,” said a statement from the Israeli army late Monday.
“A delegation of 12 soldiers and commanders from the Golani Reconnaissance Battalion” — an elite infantry unit — has been sent to participate alongside some 8,000 soldiers from 18 countries.
The event — now in its 19th edition — is organized by Morocco and the United States.
“During the next two weeks, the soldiers will focus on training in various combat challenges that combine urban warfare and underground warfare, in which they will conclude in a common exercise for all participating armies,” read the Israeli statement.
Israel participated in the event last year, however only as international military observers, without soldiers taking part on the ground.
According to the Moroccan Royal Armed Forces (FAR), the war games include exercises in operational planning and fighting weapons of mass destruction, tactical land, sea, air and special forces training, as well as airborne operations.
Morocco and Israel have been working to boost cooperation in the military, security, trade and tourism fields since they normalized ties in December 2020.

Topics: Israeli soldiers Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Morocco African Lion international exercise war games

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